Influenza vaccine efficacy trials: a simulation approach to understand failures from the past

The success of a seasonal influenza vaccine efficacy trial depends not only upon the design but also upon the annual epidemic characteristics. In this context, simulation methods are an essential tool in evaluating the performances of study designs under various circumstances. However, traditional methods for simulating time‐to‐event data are not suitable for the simulation of influenza vaccine efficacy trials because of the seasonality and heterogeneity of influenza epidemics. Instead, we propose a mathematical model parameterized with historical surveillance data, heterogeneous frailty among the subjects, survey‐based heterogeneous number of daily contact, and a mixed vaccine protection mechanism. We illustrate our methodology by generating multiple‐trial data similar to a large phase III trial that failed to show additional relative vaccine efficacy of an experimental adjuvanted vaccine compared with the reference vaccine. We show that small departures from the designing assumptions, such as a smaller range of strain protection for the experimental vaccine or the chosen endpoint, could lead to smaller probabilities of success in showing significant relative vaccine efficacy. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When corporate social responsibility meets the challenges of rising globalisation risks

Global firms are facing great difficulties in containing new risks along their supply chains: reputation risks, contestation risks, safety risks and markets risks, as well as the risk of having to deal with new laws and more binding norms. The lack of internal control on these Global Value Chains is revealed through different social or environmental crises. Mass media are mobilised by NGOs and citizens as a means of pressure, which undermines the reputation of firms and therefore their immaterial assets. These crises show that the codes of conduct and the so-called soft law instruments fail to control the supply chain, but at the same time, these instruments begin to set new standards to face these new risks. This paper discusses this evolutionary institutional process, and stresses how CSR is not only a fiction but starts having real effects by creating new institutions to respond to risks. We will focus on reputation risks and markets risks to show that, even though CSR might not have led to a completely new system of rules, the institutional process under study has a meaningful impact on the regulatory framework.     

Home Care Workers’ Skills in the Context of Task Shifting: Complexities in Care Work

Task shifting, which involves the transfer of care work from regulated health‐care professionals to home care workers (HCWs), is a strategy to ensure the efficient delivery of home care services in Canada and internationally. Using a feminist political economy approach, this paper explores the effects of task shifting on HCWs’ skills. Task shifting may be understood as a form of downward substitution—and an effort to increase control over workers while minimizing costs—as some of health‐care professionals’ responsibilities are divided into simpler tasks and transferred to HCWs. Our interviews with 46 home health‐care providers in Ontario, which focused explicitly on HCWs’ role in care provision, problematize the belief that “low skilled” care workers have little control over their work. HCWs’ skills become more complex when they do transferred tasks, and HCWs sometimes gain greater control over their work. This results in increased autonomy and mastery for many HCWs. In turn, this serves to reinforce the intrinsic rewards of care work, despite the fact that it is low paid and undervalued work. Le transfert des tâches consiste à transférer certaines activités des professionnels de la santé aux travailleurs de soutien à domicile, et s'avère être une stratégie visant à assurer la prestation efficace des services de soutien à domicile au Canada et à l'étranger. En utilisant la théorie de l'économie politique féministe, cet article explore l'impact du transfert des tâches sur les compétences des travailleurs de soutien à domicile. Le transfert des tâches peut être interprété comme une forme de substitution à la baisse avec un contrôle accru des travailleurs et une minimisation des coûts des services. Ceci se produit lorsque certaines des responsabilités des professionnels de la santé sont fragmentées en tâches plus simples pour être ensuite transférées aux travailleurs de soutien à domicile. Pourtant, le contenu de 46 entrevues avec des travailleurs de soutien à domicile et professionnels de la santé vient ébranler l'hypothèse selon laquelle les travailleurs de soutien à domicile «peu qualifiés» auraient peu de contrôle sur leurs tâches de travail. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent que les compétences des travailleurs de soutien à domicile se complexifient lorsqu'il s'agit de tâches transférées, et que ces travailleurs obtiennent parfois plus d'autonomie à l'emploi. Donc, les travailleurs de soutien à domicile acquièrent une plus grande autonomie et un contrôle plus significatif à l'emploi. Par conséquent, le transfert des tâches renforce les gratifications intrinsèques du travail en relation d'aide et ce, en dépit d'une piètre rémunération et de la sous‐valorisation du métier.     

Success Traps,Dynamic Capabilities and Firm Performance

Dynamic capabilities (DCs) are fundamental to the understanding of differential firm performance. However, the question remains why some firms are better at developing and applying DCs than others. In particular, successful firms have been warned against the tendency to fall into a success or competence trap, where success reinforces exploitation of existing competences and crowds out exploration of new competences, hindering the development of DCs. Therefore, this study examines the effects of success traps on DCs and consequently firm performance, taking into account firm strategy and market dynamism. To facilitate this, our study also identifies the commonalities of DCs across firms. Drawing on survey data from 113 UK high‐tech small and medium‐sized firms, we find that success traps have a significant, strong negative effect on DCs, which in turn have a weak positive effect on firm performance; DCs are manifested through absorptive and transformative capabilities as two common features across firms. We also find that the development and application of DCs is related to internal factors (such as success traps) rather than external factors (such as market dynamism).     

Burnout and Mental Health in Swiss Vocational Students: The Moderating Role of Physical Activity

Few studies have focused on burnout among vocational students. This study examined the association between burnout and mental health among 56 Swiss vocational students (29 males, 27 females, M = 18.1, SD = 1.2 years) and tested whether recommended levels of moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) attenuate this relationship. Burnout was strongly associated with increased depressive symptoms and decreased levels of life satisfaction, mental toughness, and quality of sleep. Students above recommended levels of MVPA reported lower burnout and higher mental health. No significant moderator effects were observed. Symptoms of burnout were associated with increased mental health problems. Physical activity should be promoted to prevent burnout, because nearly half of the students did not meet MVPA recommendations.     

Women's Migration for Domestic Work and Cross‐Border Marriage in East and Southeast Asia: Reproducing Domesticity,Contesting Citizenship

This article offers an integrative review of the literature on women's migration for domestic work and cross‐border marriages in East and Southeast Asia. By bringing these two bodies of literature into dialogue, we illuminate the interconnected processes that shape two key forms of women's migration that are embedded in the reproduction of women's domesticity. We highlight structural analyses of the demographic and socio‐economic shifts that propel women's migration while also attending to the affective dimension of migrant women's desires and duties and to the brokerages that mediate the migrant flow. We finally examine how migrant wives and domestic workers contest the boundary of citizenship as they claim their full personhood against divergent modes of control over their rights, bodies, and mobility. We conclude by pointing out concrete areas where the two sets of literature can enrich each other for future research on gender, labor, and migration.     

Toward a dimensional model of risk and protective factors influencing children's early cognitive,social, and emotional development during the COVID-19 pandemic

Variation in infants’ home environment is implicated in their cognitive and psycho-social development. The pandemic has intensified variations in home environments through exacerbating socioeconomic inequalities, and increasing psychological stressors for some families. This study investigates the effects of parental (predominantly maternal) mental health, enriching activities and screen use on 280 24- to 52-month-olds’ executive functions, internalising and externalising problems, and pro-social behaviour; with socioeconomic status and social support as contextual factors. Our results indicate that aspects of the home environment are differentially associated with children’s cognitive and psycho-social development. Parents who experienced sustained mental distress during the pandemic tended to report higher child externalising and internalising problems, and executive function difficulties at follow-up. Children who spent more time engaged in enriching activities with their parents showed stronger executive functions and social competence six months later. Screen use levels during the first year of the pandemic were not associated with outcomes. To mitigate the risk of persistent negative effects for this ‘pandemic generation’ of infants, our study highlights the importance of supporting parents’ mental health. As our results demonstrate the impact of social support on mental health, investing in support services and interventions promoting building support networks are likely to be beneficial.     

Co-parenting and parenting behaviour: The role of parent mental health for mothers and fathers in the postnatal period

The relationship between co-parenting, parent mental health and parenting remains unclear for parents during the postnatal period, particularly fathers. Therefore, the aim of the current study was to investigate these relationships for families in the postnatal period. Routinely collected self-report data from 138 mothers and 138 fathers participating in Family Foundations, a co-parenting intervention facilitated by a community health service in Melbourne, were used. Path analysis revealed that for mothers, more supportive co-parenting was associated with fewer mental health difficulties and, in turn, low parenting hostility and high parenting warmth. For fathers, supportive co-parenting was associated with fewer mental health difficulties, which was associated with low parenting hostility but not parenting warmth. Co-parenting was also directly associated with parenting warmth and hostility for fathers. The findings highlighted some key differences between mothers and fathers and the importance of interventions targeting the co-parenting relationship during early childhood.     

Contaminated consignment simulation to support risk-based inspection design

Invasive nonnative plant pests can cause extensive environmental and economic damage and are very difficult to eradicate once established. Phytosanitary inspections that aim to prevent biological invasions by limiting movement of nonnative plant pests across borders are a critical component of the biosecurity continuum. Inspections can also provide valuable information about when and where plant pests are crossing national boundaries. However, only a limited portion of the massive volume of goods imported daily can be inspected, necessitating a highly targeted, risk-based strategy. Furthermore, since inspections must prioritize detection and efficiency, their outcomes generally cannot be used to make inferences about risk for cargo pathways as a whole. Phytosanitary agencies need better tools for quantifying pests going undetected and designing risk-based inspection strategies appropriate for changing operational conditions. In this research, we present PoPS (Pest or Pathogen Spread) Border, an open-source consignment inspection simulator for measuring inspection outcomes under various cargo contamination scenarios to support recommendations for inspection protocols and estimate pest slippage rates. We used the tool to estimate contamination rates of historical interception data, quantify tradeoffs in effectiveness and workload for inspection strategies, and identify vulnerabilities in sampling protocols as changes in cargo configurations and contamination occur. These use cases demonstrate how this simulation approach permits testing inspection strategies and measuring quantities that would otherwise be impossible in a field-based setting. This work represents the first steps toward a decision support tool for creating dynamic inspection protocols that respond to changes in available resources, workload, and commerce trends.